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Why not to rely on AI · The Whigham School Podcast

0:01
Dr.
0:01
Patterson, great to be with you again.
0:03
It's always fun to have conversations about what we're trying to do with whigham School.
0:07
And I have a special conversation today about something that's really critical to our program, and that has to do with language learning.
0:14
And uh I wanted to open up a conversation with you and how we could talk about, let people know why we're doing it and how it fits in with the entire program.
0:24
So why do you think we need to have language learning today when we have Google Translate?
0:32
So I'll answer in an indirect way.
0:36
And if you like that, can give you a more direct answer.
0:39
But with language, we all speak language or languages.
0:46
And we all want to.
0:49
So even though we have Google Translate and chat bots and all that stuff, even with all of that, you ask most people, like, hey, you know, If you could, would you like to know this other language?
1:05
Everybody's gonna say yes.
1:06
It's like, yeah, if I didn't have to rely, even on super advanced technology today, it would be awesome if I didn't have to rely on the technology, right?
1:14
It's thankful for the technology, but it can't ever replace the direct connection that you and I have because we speak each other's language.
1:22
So I guess that's not that indirect of a response.
1:26
That's just the initial personal.
1:30
effective human reason for learning language.
1:34
I can connect with people.
1:36
And what we do with our masters of global studies, obviously it's all about culture, global studies, and you cannot connect with another culture and the people in that culture at any kind of advanced level unless you know the language.
1:54
It's so integral to what culture, human culture is.
1:58
Yeah, I would agree.
2:00
And traveling the world, I've traveled the world quite a bit and you have too as well.
2:04
Matter of fact, you've lived abroad and all that is as part of your history.
2:09
For everybody who's watching and or listening right now, just understand that Jeremy, you speak four languages to the level of fluency, correct?
2:19
And yeah, so tell us a little bit about that.
2:22
How you ended up with those four languages?
2:24
Well, I grew up in Japan and if anybody's watching the video of this podcast, I don't look very Japanese.
2:34
And Jeremy Patterson is not a Japanese name.
2:36
I'm US citizen.
2:39
But my parents, I moved to Japan when I was a baby.
2:43
I grew up in Japan.
2:44
So I grew up with English and then Japanese.
2:46
And then in high school, I studied French for fun, got to university in the US.
2:52
did more French, sort of, for fun.
2:55
I went abroad one summer as a student, and then from there I became a French teacher.
3:02
And then I married a Mexican who, she is also a French teacher, so I learned Spanish.
3:09
So that's how I know those are four languages, English, Japanese, French, and Spanish.
3:12
And it's just because I was privileged enough to have those opportunities.
3:17
uh Some people have that...
3:20
privilege with other languages.
3:21
Some people don't have that privilege and then, know, that's just the way that we all grew up with different opportunities, privileges.
3:26
There's nothing special about me.
3:28
There's really nothing special about somebody who speaks six or seven languages, right?
3:33
From their youth.
3:34
It's just that opportunity.
3:36
Any of us can learn those things.
3:38
But because of my background, I've always been very interested in language and in culture.
3:44
And language has always given me that direct access.
3:48
to these different cultures and people.
3:50
You know how it is, even if you just try a few words on somebody, when you speak somebody's language to them, especially if they're not expecting you to, it's like, yes, we connect now.
4:02
And it, go ahead.
4:05
I was gonna tell you about that story.
4:06
I told you about the story when I was in the Ukraine, in Odessa.
4:10
This was before the Crimean uh invasion from Russia.
4:16
And I was there giving a speech.
4:18
was an American businessman brought over to Odessa to hold.
4:25
uh seminars in entrepreneurship.
4:28
So I was, the very first night I arrived, I had to give a keynote speech.
4:32
ah so what I did was, I knew about the six months in advance.
4:39
So I actually started learning Russian, because they speak Russian in Odessa.
4:43
They don't speak Ukrainian, but Russian is our primary, even though there's a lot of Ukrainian being spoken on the streets as well.
4:48
um but I decided to try to give my first paragraph completely in Russian and surprise everybody, including my translator, who was hired to help me.
4:59
And we had about 600 plus people in the audience, and so I stood up and they were expecting me to be a typical American business man and just start speaking in English, and I started speaking in Russian.
5:13
And after that first paragraph was over, after I worked so hard to get that paragraph right.
5:19
But at the very end I said, you know, I gotta return back to my mother tongue.
5:23
And I got standing ovation.
5:25
They were so excited that I took that kind of effort.
5:29
And I think there's a lot of connection we can make, just if we have some effort that we can speak in a language that they can understand, as opposed to always making them, you know, speak in our language and um I'll never forget that feeling and not just the standing ovation which was very very complimentary I really appreciated their doing that but just how I saw them see me as somebody who cared I think that's really important part of the whigham School is that we want the students to be seen that way in the world and not just some Americans or whoever they are who just are traveling the world but we want them to understand the world and be able to connect with culture.
6:12
And language is big part of it.
6:13
Wouldn't you agree?
6:16
Yeah, and that altruistic view of it, that's not gonna convince everybody who's listening, unfortunately.
6:25
I think that should be enough, right?
6:28
But let's look at it from a more individualistic, let's say slightly more selfish point of view.
6:35
Just knowing the language, again, regardless of whether people look at you differently or accept you better once you know their language.
6:43
It's gonna give you better access.
6:45
You're gonna get to another country, get to a country where you're like, oh, can read, I can eavesdrop, I can listen, I can watch, I can find what I need.
6:54
And I have just a better practical access to everything.
7:00
One time, I was in a country where I could not communicate at all.
7:08
So, a little over a decade ago, I went to an academic conference in Belgrade, Serbia.
7:14
okay.
7:15
at the conference, which was a university conference, everybody was multilingual, all the professors, everybody spoke English, Serbian, lots spoke Spanish.
7:24
But I found it was interesting compared to a lot of the Western European capitals.
7:29
In Belgrade, outside of that academic setting, very few knew much English at all.
7:36
I had a taxi driver, barely knew English.
7:40
And you know, he's driving around downtown Belgrade airport and everything.
7:43
went to restaurants, went to a hotel, stayed in hotel.
7:46
Almost nobody knew English, much less grocery store.
7:52
And I didn't have the attitude, obviously like, oh, why don't you know English?
7:58
In Serbia, why should they know English?
8:00
We're Americans, don't know Serbian.
8:02
And so I started feeling almost apologetic, like y'all, I don't know anything, it's a different script, I can't make out anything.
8:12
Yeah.
8:13
I was like, I'm sorry, I don't know your language.
8:16
And then it dawned on me, because again, I've had the privilege of growing up with multiple languages and as adult learning more.
8:23
And so most of the places I go, I can get by with one of the four languages.
8:29
Obviously there are many countries where I wouldn't, but the countries I've been to.
8:32
But in Serbia, it dawned on me, like this is what my students feel like.
8:37
And it is what people feel like.
8:39
Like you don't have access to anything.
8:42
And so it's nice when you go to the big cities, you go to Tokyo, Paris, whatever, and there a lot of people will know English and you can get by.
8:52
But that's only because some of those people do know English.
8:57
You go to a place where people don't know much of your language and you really lack that access to communication.
9:05
So that's practical personal reason to learn languages.
9:11
And I have another one as well, um practical personal.
9:16
I did a lot of research at the very beginning of our development of the whigham School, and I remember going into the psychology and the health side of language learning, and how it affects the brain, the neuroplasticity of the brain.
9:29
And I know this is really geeky, and I don't want to get into too much of details here, but if anybody who's a neuroscientist or anything will be able to affirm this or give a lot better details than I ever could.
9:39
But uh language learning is very helpful to us.
9:42
um That multiple languages creates different neural pathways that we would not normally have if we only spoke one language.
9:49
What really makes that very helpful to us is not only does it make us quicker on our feet, so to speak, because we have a lot of different ways of connecting ideas in our brains and developing thoughts, but also as things such as dementia and Alzheimer's starts to rise within us.
10:04
Now that you have multiple neural networks, the effects of any kind of a disease like Alzheimer's or dementia can actually be mitigated over time.
10:13
you could add years of uh cognitive clarity, even if you're starting to develop Alzheimer's over time.
10:21
And so you could have as many years of extra uh cognitive clarity that you would not have if you only knew one language because of the neural pathways having, the brain has so many different ways of creating ah thoughts and being able to respond to stimuli.
10:38
um I thought that was really interesting.
10:42
absolutely.
10:43
And that's the health reason to learn languages.
10:45
And we should really embrace that because many of us probably are runners or we lift weights or we go to the gym or we play a sport, practically for health reasons.
10:58
People invest, especially in US culture, people invest millions and millions and millions and millions in health culture and diets and everything else.
11:08
And all of that, there are reasons for that.
11:10
But...
11:12
Your brain could kill you before muscle atrophy or whatever else.
11:17
Running is good, right?
11:18
And I'm not a physician or anything, but all of that is good.
11:22
But your brain is huge.
11:23
Like you said, you don't want to live the last decade or more even possibly with dementia, Alzheimer's or whatever.
11:30
And there's nothing that's as good for your brain.
11:32
And I'm happy for people to email me and challenges, but I'll say this categorically.
11:38
Nothing is gonna be as good for your brain.
11:41
And there, as you mentioned, neuroplasticity now, creativity now, but also brain health and longevity later.
11:47
Nothing is good for it as learning other languages.
11:52
And there are other things, but.
11:54
Yeah.
11:55
And you probably could testify to this and I don't have that much of perspective.
11:58
I speak a little bit of German, a little bit of Spanish, just a smidge of French.
12:04
So I have kind of bounced around.
12:06
You taught myself that Russian for that one speech, which I can barely hold on to any kind of conversation in Russian at this point.
12:13
But, um, cause I really learned the language improperly and we'll talk about how we're going to be teaching languages differently in another podcast.
12:20
Cause it's too much for one podcast to talk about both of these things.
12:24
But, You know, it's um the real power, I think, when it comes to language, um is not only does it open up communication channels to us, not only does it, um it offers us a much more creative palette.
12:43
It also allows us to think better overall, allows us to reason better, allows all these things because I remember what Goethe once said.
12:51
He said, you know, a man who speaks one language doesn't speak a language at all.
12:55
And he was not trying to be too, you know, he was almost like tongue in cheek when he said that.
13:01
But he was basically saying, really need to have other languages so that you can understand what your language is, because your language gives you a lens on the world.
13:09
The way we phrase things, the way we interpret things, the way we structure our sentences has a way of building a kind of a...
13:17
a tight circle around our viewpoint.
13:21
Whereas other languages who use different ways of communicating allows us to expand that aperture and see a larger context that only a single language will allow us to do.
13:31
So if you want to be a good thinker over time...
13:35
language is your pathway.
13:37
I'm trying to learn Spanish and Jeremy, you've been so supportive of my very bad Spanish speaking at this point.
13:44
I'm hoping even though in my age, I'm still going to pursue it because I think it's a life-affirming thing.
13:52
ah So the languages that we're gonna be focusing on at the Wickham School, of course...
13:59
English is our baseline of our communications in the school.
14:05
But we'll be teaching French, Spanish, Mandarin, and also Arabic.
14:11
And that's an interesting combination.
14:13
And the reason why those were chosen, because if you add them all up, the people who speak it either as their first or second language, you can speak to over 49 % or half of the world's population in a tongue they understand.
14:28
Whereas it's around 14 % if it's just English.
14:31
people, 14 % of the world's population speaks some kind of English, use the first, second, or third language for them.
14:38
But if you have all those five stacked together, English plus those four that we're teaching, it goes up to 49%, which you can imagine how much easier that will be to communicate with the world.
14:51
English and Spanish, you've got the Americas almost covered, right?
14:55
Not that everybody's necessarily a native speaker of one of those, but pretty much you've got it covered.
15:01
even if you go to Brazil where they speak Portuguese, a lot of them speak Spanish as well, although they speak English.
15:08
So you'll have lots of opportunities to even talk in a country that doesn't have, that's primarily another language, just because these are all great secondary languages for the world's population.
15:23
So.
15:23
French, you've got lots of Europe and lots of Africa covered.
15:28
You've Mandarin, you've got one of the world's largest superpowers covered.
15:34
You've got Arabic, and that covers most of uh the Arab countries.
15:45
There are many other languages, and we're not saying these are the most important, we're just saying these are the numerically.
15:51
the most significant, if we're trying to do, like you said, quickly increase the number of people that we can potentially communicate with.
16:01
But you do that, here's the thing, you do that, you learn just a second language even, you're bilingual.
16:08
Now you're ready to go on any other language.
16:11
So you move somewhere and let's say it's a smaller language, just a lot fewer speakers of a language.
16:17
Now you're ready though to take that challenge on.
16:20
Yes.
16:23
Yeah, so not only have you learned a language, you've learned how to learn a language.
16:27
And so that learning can be passed on and you can pick up Italian, Russian, Portuguese, whatever you think is important to you.
16:35
German.
16:36
um Those can be added much easier as you go through the progression of the language learning that we'll be doing at the Wigham School, that also excites me.
16:45
Now, we won't get our students to full fluency in all four of the new languages.
16:51
em That would be impossible.
16:54
There's just not enough time for us to be able to do that.
16:56
But we will get a very sticky form of common communications, right?
17:01
They'll be able to have a conversation in a coffee shop in those four new languages.
17:07
um You see it that way?
17:10
Yeah.
17:11
absolutely.
17:12
so along those lines, backing up to one thing you said about, learning some Spanish and you've dabbled in other languages.
17:21
A lot of times we think, well, if I don't get to quote unquote fluency, if I don't get to a certain level, then I don't know the language.
17:28
think again analogous with other aspects of our health.
17:33
Maybe I don't go lift weights because I'm like, well, I can't bench press 400 pounds like this.
17:38
bodybuilder cancer, why do it?
17:40
Well, we know even if you don't see an immediate, like you're not suddenly ripped after a week of working out, or you don't lose 20 pounds after running for a few days, there are still many benefits, right?
17:55
Health benefits, cardiovascular, cholesterol, there are health benefits, even if you don't see them all.
18:02
Similarly, there are brain benefits, even if you're just starting out with the language, even if you're just trying.
18:08
even if you're still at a novice level.
18:10
And so we see huge benefits for what our students are gonna do and what we're gonna try to have them do, not what we're gonna try, what we're gonna do with our students, they're gonna have the amount of instruction, those four languages that you mentioned, that will get them at least to an intermediate level of proficiency.
18:28
You got novice, intermediate, advanced.
18:33
Usually when we talk about fluency, what we have in mind is what we would call in language teaching, advanced level of proficiency.
18:42
Intermediate level is functional, it's conversational.
18:46
And our students will have huge uh linguistic, neuro-linguistic benefits from doing that in four languages.
18:54
They'll have huge intercultural benefits from getting to that level.
18:58
And then they'll be ready in any of four of those languages that they need to fairly quickly go to an advanced level after completing our program.
19:08
They're not all going to go live in, you know, France, Chile, China, and Egypt all at the same time.
19:15
They're going to go different ways in life.
19:18
Some will go on and develop a mastery of Mandarin or whatever the case may be.
19:25
We're going to make them functional.
19:27
We're going to make them so that, we can step into these environments, academic, professional, otherwise, and we can use the language.
19:35
We can communicate.
19:37
And then they can take it to the next level after they graduate, which is fantastic.
19:41
We hope that they will do that.
19:43
And they may find it in a fifth language, ah or sixth language, I guess, would be for them.
19:48
That'd be at five when they graduate, which makes them officially a polyglot, which is pretty cool.
19:53
ah And so they'll be able to brag about that fact that they're polyglots when they finish with the Wigham School.
20:00
One thing I wanted, yeah.
20:03
I hope I'll get there someday.
20:04
I hope I'll get there someday.
20:06
um But anyhow, um what about these uh people that tell us, and this will be last thing we talk about, we'll call this podcast, but people who say, I can't learn language.
20:19
I tried and it hasn't worked for me.
20:22
I did terrible, I took Spanish in high school.
20:24
I don't remember anything I learned.
20:27
Any advice for them?
20:30
em I'll give you my less nice advice first.
20:35
I'll give my snarky advice first and then I'll give you something else.
20:38
My snarky advice is you just contradicted yourself.
20:43
In what way?
20:44
Oh yeah, you just told in a language that you have learned that you can't learn a language.
20:50
And she's like, well, that's different because I learned it as a child.
20:52
OK, OK.
20:53
Let's think about it.
20:54
OK, children learn language, right?
20:57
ah What advantages do they have?
21:01
Well, they have tons of natural immersion in the language.
21:05
That's harder for us as adults to get.
21:06
If I want to go and learn Portuguese, that's harder.
21:09
It's not impossible, but it's harder for me to get that living here in the US, right?
21:16
A child.
21:17
Brazilian child grows up here in Portuguese.
21:19
They have lots of natural immersion.
21:21
Also children, tend to have less inhibition than adults do.
21:25
You and I, like we're self-conscious, we don't want to make errors.
21:27
Children, it just flows out of them.
21:29
uh and she's making, I think she's made up her own language, but she's having a time of her life learning language right now.
21:38
And it's been absolutely adorable to watch her speak because yeah, and she doesn't care because she thinks she's communicating, even though she doesn't have all the words.
21:48
those advantages.
21:49
My children are trilingual because they've always been immersed with me in French.
21:53
They've always been immersed with my wife in Spanish and they use English at school and with friends, but they've been immersed.
21:59
Children have those advantages, but let's think about what advantages we as adults have over children.
22:05
We may have more social inhibition than children do.
22:08
It is harder to get immersion, but let's think about this.
22:12
Our brains are way more developed than children's brains.
22:17
We can understand language.
22:19
Children don't understand how language works.
22:22
They just use it.
22:23
Think about a three-year-old, four-year-old.
22:25
They know, but actually, as a three- or four-year-old native speaker, are they actually advanced?
22:31
I could they get up and give a business presentation in the language?
22:35
Could they teach the language to other people?
22:37
Could they have a conversation about their grandparents' dementia?
22:42
No.
22:43
They're not actually advanced speakers.
22:44
They're native speakers, but they're at best at an intermediate level.
22:47
But they're rapidly expanding their vocabulary and grammar and understanding.
22:52
So as adults, we have that advantage.
22:53
We can understand language and we can push ourselves.
22:57
But what we need to do is find the right methodology, the right opportunity, the right environment.
23:05
And I'll just put this out there.
23:07
Obviously, it's not going to be an app.
23:09
ah I'm not a hater.
23:12
I'm not hating on the apps.
23:13
I'm not gonna mention any apps by name because I'm not trying to promote or demote them.
23:17
But if you've tried it, as most of us have at this point, different language apps, you see the limitations.
23:24
Now, they are tools, but an app is kind of like a paper dictionary.
23:27
You can sit down with a print dictionary.
23:29
You will never ever get to advance proficiency in the language.
23:32
You can sit down with an app.
23:34
You can sit down with the so-called AI apps, whatever.
23:37
I guarantee you, you'll never get to advance proficiency in the language.
23:41
Because you need this, you human interaction, you need intercultural immersion, and that's what our program does for our students.
23:49
We're pushing them, right?
23:53
We're pushing them to work through their social inhibitions.
23:56
We're taking them to these other countries.
23:58
We're giving them the immersion opportunities.
24:01
And we're teaching them and we're requiring them to advance, not just an app.
24:07
And we can talk about that in detail.
24:10
So basically the um idea, language learning good or bad?
24:14
Thumbs up, thumbs down.
24:15
What do think?
24:17
That is pretty good.
24:18
I will say no one has ever given me a reason not to learn a language.
24:23
Yeah, yeah.
24:24
And that's really why we need leaders who can actually jump over boundaries that are naturally there.
24:31
And language sometimes can be that boundary.
24:33
And we want, we need leaders of this next generation to be able to jump those boundaries.
24:38
So that's the reason why it's a very integral part of how the Wigham School will function.
24:42
We think it'll be a master key that will unlock a lot about culture and their histories and everything else by understanding their language.
24:51
and the connection we can have with people through language.
24:54
So anyhow, we got a lot more to talk about about languages.
24:57
We'll tee this back up really soon and we'll talk a little bit about how the Williams School is doing language in a different way that can be very helpful and we think actually very efficient and effective.
25:07
And we'll get to that point next.
25:09
And Jeremy, just thanks for taking the time.
25:11
Thank you for the time to tell us about these things.
25:14
All right, we'll talk soon.
25:15
All right, bye.
25:17
Bye.